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Make It Land: Say It To Their Face

This article is part of Make It Land, a 5-part series on leadership communication. Each essay explores a different reason why an idea can fail to land with the audience. The pieces stand alone. Together they reflect on a simple leadership discipline: communicating so that ideas are understood, remembered and acted upon.Leadership communication principle:Feedback without conversation is criticism without care. In February 2017, former Uber engineer Susan Fowler published a blog post detailing her experiences with sexual harassment, discrimination and HR failures at the company. Her account described reporting harassment to HR, being told that the harasser was a "high performer" whose behaviour would be overlooked and subsequently facing retaliation.The post went viral. Within days, Uber's board commissioned an investigation led by former US Attorney General Eric Holder and Arianna Huffington. The investigation revealed systemic cultural problems across the organization.In June 2017, CEO Travis Kalanick sent an email to all employees acknowledging the findings and outlining planned reforms. The message was carefully worded, appropriately serious and widely distributed.It was also entirely insufficient.Employees who had reported harassment, experienced retaliation or watched colleagues leave in frustration did not need an email. They needed conversation. They needed acknowledgement that what they had experienced was real, that leadership understood the harm and that change would be sustained, not performed.The email satisfied regulatory requirements. It satisfied the media cycle. It did not satisfy the people whose trust had been broken.Within weeks, Kalanick resigned as CEO. The new leadership under Dara Khosrowshahi adopted a different approach: direct engagement, town halls with open Q&A, one-on-one meetings with affected employees and sustained accountability mechanisms built into performance management and promotion decisions.The Illusion of ControlEmail offers leaders the illusion of control. You can edit. You can refine. You can choose your words carefully. You can say exactly what you mean without interruption. You can create a record, document decisions and ensure nothing is misunderstood.Except things are misunderstood all the time.Communication is more than words. It includes tone, timing, presence and the signals that tell someone where you stand. It give the speaker the added ability to hear how something is landing in real time…and adjust.When the message is difficult, email does not make communication easier.When Documentation Replaces Dialogue:In May 2018, The New York Times reported that McDonald's employees had filed sexual harassment complaints with the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in ten cities. Workers described a pattern of groping, propositions and retaliation. Many complaints had been filed through standard HR channels and addressed procedurally rather than through direct senior leadership engagement.The legal framework was followed. The documentation existed. The responses were procedurally correct. Employees described feeling unheard. Complaints that should have triggered deeper investigation were closed administratively.These incidents could have been conversations instead they became transactions.By 2020, McDonald's workers in multiple countries organized strikes specifically around the company's handling of harassment claims. In the United States, worker advocacy groups filed complaints with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration arguing that the company's failure to adequately address harassment created unsafe working conditions.The Three Tests:Not every message requires a conversation, but some cannot survive without one. Before you write, ask: What Good Conversations Do:A good difficult conversation does not feel easy. But it does feel clear.The person knows where they stand. They know you have thought carefully about what you are saying. They know you care enough to sit with them in the discomfort rather than sending it from a distance.Good conversations allow for response. For questions. For misunderstanding to be corrected before it calcifies into resentment.They allow you to see whether the message has landed. Not whether the person agrees, but whether they understand. Those are not the same thing, and in writing, you often cannot tell the difference.They also allow you to adapt. If you see confusion, you can clarify. If you see hurt, you can acknowledge it. If you see defensiveness, you can slow down.None of that is possible in an email.A Question for Reflection:Think about a message you need to deliver this week. Before you begin drafting the email, ask yourself:What am I avoiding by writing instead of speaking?What do I need to hear that only a conversation can reveal?How would I want to receive this message if I were them?If the answer to the last question is "in person," you have your answer.References:Byron K. (2008). Carrying too heavy a load? The communication and miscommunication of emotion by email. Academy of Management Review. 33(2):309-327.Fowler S. (2017, February 19). Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber. Susan Fowler [blog]. https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-one-very-strange-year-at-uberIsaac M. (2017, June 21). Uber founder Travis Kalanick resigns as C.E.O. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/21/technology/uber-ceo-travis-kalanick.htmlKruger J, Epley N, Parker J, Ng ZW. (2005). Egocentrism over e-mail: Can we communicate as well as we think? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 89(6):925-936.Schlosser S, Levy J. (2018, May 21). McDonald's workers file new sexual harassment complaints. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/21/business/mcdonalds-sexual-harassment.html

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Make It Land: Death By PowerPoint

 This article is part of Make It Land, a 5-part series on leadership communication. Each essay explores a different reason why an idea can fail to land with the audience. The pieces stand alone. Together they reflect on a simple leadership discipline: communicating so that ideas are understood, remembered and acted upon.Leadership Communication Principle:If your deck works perfectly well without you in the room, you should not be in the room either. On January 28, 1986, Space Shuttle Challenger broke apart 73 seconds after launch, killing all seven crew members. The failure was caused by the rupture of an O-ring seal in the right solid rocket booster, a component that had not been tested adequately in cold temperatures.The night before the launch, engineers at Morton Thiokol had serious concerns. They knew that temperatures at Cape Canaveral were forecast to drop to 26-29°F at launch time, well below the 53°F temperature at which O-rings had previously shown damage. They prepared a presentation to recommend postponing the launch.The engineers had data. They had evidence of O-ring erosion in previous cold-weather launches. They had legitimate concerns about structural integrity.They presented their case using slides.In his analysis The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint, information design expert Edward Tufte examined the presentation structure. He found that critical information was buried in bullet points. The severity of risk was not visually prioritized. Technical data was presented in formats that obscured rather than clarified the engineers' concerns. Recommendations were tentative rather than directive.NASA managers, under schedule pressure and without clear visual hierarchy to guide their attention, interpreted the presentation as inconclusive. Morton Thiokol's senior management eventually reversed the engineers' recommendation and gave approval to launch.The Presidential Commission investigating the disaster later concluded that the decision-making process was flawed and that concerns about O-ring performance in cold weather had not been adequately communicated or resolved.The engineers knew the risk. The slides failed to convey it with the force it required.PowerPoint Will Not Do Your Job:Slides are not a script. They are not a document. They are not a substitute for clarity and they are certainly not a replacement for the presenter's judgment.A presentation is a communication event. Something must happen in the room that could not happen without you. If your slides can be read and understood in your absence, not only are you surplus to requirements but you are also circulating a document disguised as a deck.The problem is not PowerPoint. The problem is the belief that slides themselves carry the message.They do not.Three Types of PresentationsNot all presentations serve the same purpose. The structure that works for one will fail for another. Before building your deck, know what you are trying to do. What Good Slides Actually Do:Good slides anchor. They give the audience a place to look while you talk. They provide visual reference points that make abstract ideas concrete. They help people remember what you said after you have left the room.But they do not carry the message. You do.The Challenger Lesson:The Challenger disaster was not caused by slides. It was caused by organizational pressure, flawed decision-making processes and a failure to elevate engineering concerns to the level they required.The slides did not help.Tufte's analysis demonstrated how the visual presentation of data can either clarify or obscure risk. In high-stakes decisions, clarity is not optional. It is a leadership responsibility.When someone knows something critical, the communication structure must allow that knowledge to land with the force it deserves. Slides that diffuse urgency, bury recommendations or rely on inference fail that test.The presenter's job is to ensure the message is received.A Question for Reflection:Before your next presentation, ask yourself:What am I trying to do: inform, persuade or align?What would I say if I had no slides at all?Is my presence doing work that the slides cannot?If you cannot answer those questions clearly, your audience will not be able to either.ReferencesHeath C, Heath D. (2013). Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work. Crown Business.Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident. (1986). Report to the President. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.Tufte ER. (2006). The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint: Pitching Out Corrupts Within. 2nd ed. Graphics Press.

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Make It Land: Words That Work

This article is part of Make It Land, a 5-part series on leadership communication. Each essay explores a different reason why an idea can fail to land with the audience. The pieces stand alone. Together they reflect on a simple leadership discipline: communicating so that ideas are understood, remembered and acted upon.Leadership Communication Principle:Email is not where conversations happen. It is where decisions are confirmed. In March 2009, during the depths of the global financial crisis, American International Group (AIG) was operating under an $182 billion government bailout. The company had been at the centre of the crisis, and public anger was intense.On March 14, news broke that AIG had paid $165 million in retention bonuses to executives in the Financial Products division—the same unit largely responsible for the losses that had brought the company to the brink of collapse. The bonuses were contractually obligated, determined before the bailout, but the optics were devastating.AIG CEO Edward Liddy was summoned to testify before Congress. In preparation, he sent an open letter to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on March 16, 2009. The letter outlined the facts: the bonuses were legally binding, originated from contracts signed in early 2008, and retention was deemed necessary to wind down complex derivative positions.The letter was factually accurate. It was legally defensible. Public trust shattered nonetheless.Liddy later testified before the House Financial Services Committee, where he faced intense questioning. In his oral testimony, he acknowledged that the bonuses were "distasteful" and committed to asking recipients to return at least half. He expressed understanding of public anger. The conversation allowed nuance that the written letter did not convey.Written communication creates distance. Sometimes that distance is useful. Sometimes it is fatal.When Writing Works:Email is not inherently inadequate. It is simply specific in what it does well.Writing works when:The decision has already been madeThe message is informational and unambiguousA record is neededConsistency across many recipients mattersTime zones or geography prevent synchronous communicationIn these contexts, clarity and structure become paramount. But clarity in writing is not the same as clarity in speech. Written communication must work without tone, without immediate clarification and without the ability to adjust based on the recipient's reaction.The Anatomy of Actionable WritingResearch on organizational communication has identified structural elements that increase the likelihood that written communication will drive action rather than create confusion.In their analysis of effective business communication, researchers Barbara Shwom and Lisa Snyder identified several principles that distinguish messages that land from those that circulate without impact: Lead with the action or decisionMost organizational emails bury the ask. Background comes first. Context is explained. Justification is provided. Eventually, somewhere in paragraph four, the actual request appears.This structure follows the writer's thought process, not the reader's need. Readers scan. They decide within seconds whether to engage deeply or move on. If the point is not visible immediately, many never find it.Effective structure inverts this pattern:Subject line states the decision or requestFirst sentence clarifies what is needed and by whenBody provides context for those who need itClose repeats the action and accountabilityUse active voice to assign ownershipPassive voice obscures accountability. It allows decisions to appear as if they happened rather than were made.Compare:"A decision was made to delay the product launch.""The executive team decided to delay the product launch."The first sentence hides agency. The second makes clear who is accountable.In a 2011 study published in Management Communication Quarterly, researchers found that organizational emails using passive voice were significantly more likely to be perceived as evasive or lacking accountability, even when the content was identical to active-voice versions.If you cannot name who is responsible, the communication is incomplete.Structure for scanningMost organizational emails are not read. They are scanned. Visual hierarchy determines what gets noticed.Effective emails use:Bolded headings to break up textBullet points to make lists scannableWhite space to reduce cognitive loadShort paragraphs (three sentences maximum)The goal is to make depth accessible to those who need it without forcing everyone to read everything. Separate decision from discussionOne common failure in written communication is conflating announcement with consultation. The writer wants feedback but frames the message as if the decision is already made. Or the writer presents a decision but invites so much discussion that recipients are unclear whether they have agency to influence the outcome.Clarity requires separating these modes.If you are announcing: Be clear that the decision is made. Explain the rationale. Outline next steps. Invite questions for understanding, not for reversalIf you are consulting: Be explicit about what is open for input and what is not. Set a deadline for feedback. Explain how input will be usedIf you are aligning: Frame the issue as a question.Ambiguity about which mode you are in creates confusion, resentment and wasted effort.When Writing FailsWriting fails when the message requires:Emotional nuance that tone conveysImmediate back-and-forth to clarify misunderstandingTrust-building that presence supportsBuy-in that conversation createsIn these cases, writing is avoidance rather than efficiency.The 2010 book Crucial Conversations by Kerry Patterson and colleagues describes how high-stakes conversations require dialogue. Email allows leaders to avoid seeing the impact of their words. That avoidance comes at a cost. When leadership default to email for these moments, they trade short-term comfort for long-term damage.The AIG LessonEdward Liddy's letter to Treasury Secretary Geithner was inadequate. The facts were accurate, but the medium could not carry the weight of what the moment required. His later testimony before Congress was more effective because the format allowed him to respond, acknowledge emotion and signal accountability in real time.Writing has power of record, of clarity and of reach. It is not the power of connection, empathy or trust-building under pressure. Leadership requires knowing which power the moment needs.A Question for ReflectionBefore you send your next significant email, ask:If they only read the subject line and first sentence, would they know what I need?Am I using this medium because it serves the message, or because it protects me from the conversation?Does this message need a record, or does it need a relationship?Writing is a tool that works best when matched precisely to what the message requires.ReferencesLiddy EM. (2009, March 16). [Letter to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner regarding AIG retention payments]. Available from: https://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Documents/031809aigliddy.pdfPatterson K, Grenny J, McMillan R, Switzler A. (2011). Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High. 2nd ed. McGraw-Hill.Shwom B, Snyder LG. (2012). Business Communication: Polishing Your Professional Presence. 2nd ed. Pearson.Suchan J, Hayzak G. (2001). The communication characteristics of virtual teams: A case study. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication. 44(3):174-186.US House of Representatives Committee on Financial Services. (2009, March 18). Hearing on AIG: "A.I.G.: Where Is the Taxpayers' Money?" 111th Congress, 1st Session.Waldeck JH, Seibold DR, Flanagin AJ. (2004). Organizational assimilation and communication technology use. Communication Monographs. 71(2):161-183.

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Make It Land: Read The Room

This article is part of Make It Land, a 5-part series on leadership communication. Each essay explores a different reason why an idea can fail to land with the audience. The pieces stand alone. Together they reflect on a simple leadership discipline: communicating so that ideas are understood, remembered and acted upon.Leadership Communication Principle:The right message in the wrong room becomes the wrong message. In April 2020, as the aviation industry faced unprecedented collapse due to COVID-19, British Airways announced plans to make up to 12,000 staff redundant. CEO Alex Cruz delivered the news via a video message sent to all 42,000 employees.The business case was clear. Passenger numbers had dropped by more than 90%. The company faced an existential threat. The decision was financially unavoidable.But the communication method sparked immediate backlash. The Unite union described the approach as "a slap in the face" and accused management of failing to consult properly before announcing job cuts. Employees reported learning about potential redundancy through impersonal video rather than direct conversation with their managers. MPs criticized the communication as inadequate given the scale and severity of the decision.The content was accurate. The channel selection was poor.Communication fails not only when the message is unclear, but also when the setting makes it impossible to receive with dignity.One month later, Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky announced that the company would lay off approximately 1,900 employees, roughly 25% of its workforce. Chesky wrote a detailed memo explaining the rationale, the decision-making process and the support being offered to departing employees.Critically, affected employees were informed through direct one-on-one video calls with their managers before the company-wide memo was distributed. The memo was then published publicly, providing transparency while maintaining respect for those most impacted. Chesky's approach was widely praised for its clarity, empathy and recognition that people directly affected deserved personal communication before broader announcement.Both organizations faced similar financial pressures. Both needed to communicate difficult decisions quickly during a crisis. Who hears what, when and through which channel signals organizational values under pressure. The difference was in recognizing which messages require direct human engagement before wider communication occurs.The communication channel is not neutral. It signals priority, respect and the leader's understanding of what the message requires.A Decision Framework: The Hierarchy of Communication:When messages carry significant weight, sequence matters.  It is not about secrecy. It is about respect for the weight of what people are being asked to hear.Highest impact individuals first Those directly affected should hear before anyone else, through the most human channel available.Managers next Those responsible for supporting affected individuals need context, time to process and clarity on their role in broader communication.Broader organization after once those closest to the impact have been informed, wider communication can follow with integrity.External stakeholders last unless regulatory or legal requirements dictate otherwise, external communication should follow internal alignment.A Question for Reflection:Consider a significant decision your organization needs to communicate in the coming months.Who will be most affected by this message?What channel would allow them to receive it with dignity?What sequence would signal that their experience matters?If your instinct is to draft the email first, pause. Ask whether the message requires presence before broadcast?References:Chesky B. (2020, May 5). A message from co-founder and CEO Brian Chesky. Airbnb Newsroom. https://news.airbnb.com/a-message-from-co-founder-and-ceo-brian-chesky/Topham G. (2020, April 28). British Airways boss criticised over 'heartless' redundancy video. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/apr/28/british-airways-boss-criticised-over-heartless-redundancy-videoUnite the Union. (2020, April 28). BA CEO's video to staff is a 'slap in the face' says Unite. https://www.unitetheunion.org/news-events/news/2020/april/ba-ceo-s-video-to-staff-is-a-slap-in-the-face-says-unite/

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Make It Land: Nobody Is Reading Your Report

This article is part of Make It Land, a 5-part series on leadership communication. Each essay explores a different reason why an idea can fail to land with the audience. The pieces stand alone. Together they reflect on a simple leadership discipline: communicating so that ideas are understood, remembered and acted upon.Leadership Communication Principle:Start with the message. Do not make the audience search for the point. A few years ago the United Nations commissioned a report to understand why UN reports are so rarely read. Yes. A report about why people do not read reports.The findings were unsurprising. The UN produces more than a thousand reports a year, yet a significant number are barely downloaded. And downloading, as anyone who has ever saved a PDF “for later” knows, is not the same thing as reading.It is tempting to blame the audience. People are busy. They skim. They are distracted. All true.But there is another explanation.Communication is often designed around the speaker’s process rather than the audience’s experience.Many leaders communicate as if the audience will patiently follow the path they themselves took. Context. Background. Explanation. Caveats. And finally, at long last, the point.Sometimes even then, it arrives apologetically.This pattern appears everywhere. In emails where the request is buried in paragraph four. In presentations where the recommendation sits on the final slide. In meetings where ten minutes of scene-setting precede the sentence everyone needed to hear first.Leaders often think they are being thorough. Their audience agrees to differ.In many organisations, important ideas are being developed all the time. They fail to land because the communication surrounding them asks too much of the audience.Readers must search for the point. Listeners must infer the conclusion. Viewers must wait for the recommendation. Many do not.Communication is not complete when something has been said. It is complete when the idea lands.The first discipline of leadership communication is respect for the audience’s time. This requires a shift in mindset. Instead of asking, Have I explained this properly? the leader asks a different question: What does the audience need to hear first? Once the point is visible, the rest of the information becomes easier to absorb. Context makes sense. Detail finds its place. Nuance becomes possible. Without the point, everything competes equally for attention.This may sound obvious, but it cuts against many habits that professional life rewards. We are trained to show our workings. We are rewarded for volume. We are often more worried about sounding insufficiently rigorous than about being insufficiently clear.It is tempting to think that if something matters enough, people will keep reading, keep listening, keep following. This is only true if there is a stick to wield forcing people to do so. Usually they do not.Attention is not a reward granted to important ideas. It is a condition that communication must earn. 

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The Leadership Toolbelt: The Blueprint

This piece is part of a five-part ClariT series drawing on five texts: Leadership on the Line, Emotional Intelligence 2.0, Dare to Lead, The Leader’s Guide to Radical Management and Thinking in Systems. Each article applies one book’s central distinction to contemporary leadership challenges. The essays stand independently. Taken together, they broaden the leadership toolbelt so that different kinds of problems can be met with different kinds of tools. A blueprint defines the structure before anything is built. It determines sequence, flow and relationships between components. If the blueprint is flawed, a flawed product will be produced, even when the contractors are competent and well-intentioned.In Thinking in Systems, Donella Meadows argues that systems produce the results they are designed to produce. When outcomes appear persistent or surprising, the explanation is usually structural rather than behavioural.Caroline Criado Perez recounts a clear illustration of this in Invisible Women. A Swedish municipality, Karlskoga, began reviewing its policies through a gender equality initiative. During a council discussion, two men reportedly joked that at least snow-clearing would be safe from the gendered scrutiny initiative. No one could accuse snow-ploughing of being sexist.The municipality’s winter maintenance policy appeared straightforward. Major roads were cleared first. Smaller roads followed. Pedestrian paths and cycle routes were cleared later. The reasoning was practical. Roads carry traffic. Traffic supports economic activity. Safety incidents would be higher cost.A review was initiated.  Why should snowploughing be exempt from re-examination based on the assumption that it could not possibly contain a gendered design element?When officials examined the data more closely, a pattern emerged. Travel habits were not gender neutral.Men were more likely to travel directly between home and work by car, typically during concentrated commuting periods. Women, children and the elderly were more likely to make multiple shorter trips throughout the day. These journeys often involved combinations of walking, cycling and public transport, and included errands such school drop-offs and care responsibilities like groceries or pharmacy visits. Timing also differed. Car commuting concentrated movement during peak hours. Pedestrian and public transport travel occurred throughout the day. The volume of journeys taking place on pedestrian routes and public transport corridors was therefore substantial, even if it was less visible in traditional traffic measurements.The existing blueprint prioritised clearing roads first because roads carried commuter traffic. But commuter traffic represented only one model of mobility. Drivers were prioritised intentionally, but drivers represented a smaller share of total journeys than the system assumed. When pedestrian paths remained icy longer than roads, those routes became hazardous. Hospital records already showed that pedestrians were injured far more frequently than motorists in winter conditions, and the majority of those injured pedestrians were women.The productivity impact was also measurable. Sweden routinely tracks work absence caused by injury and care responsibilities. When someone slips on an icy pavement, the economic loss does not stop with the injured person. The injured individual may miss work. Family members may also miss work to provide care. For example, an adult child may stay home to support an elderly parent who has fallen. Because women were both more likely to use pedestrian routes and more likely to bear care responsibilities, the productivity loss disproportionately affected them. When these datasets were examined together, the flaw in the original blueprint became visible.Karlskoga decided to pilot a different sequence. Pedestrian walkways and cycle paths were cleared first. Roads followed. The costs remained the same, but injuries declined and productivity improved. The pilot ran successfully for three winters.When the policy was later implemented nationally, the first winter proved unusually severe. Snow accumulation was heavy. Complaints rose quickly. Media coverage framed the policy as impractical and ideological. The earlier pilot results were largely unknown to the majority of the public.The easier response would have been to revert to the old system. Instead, the redesign held.The original policy had not been malicious. It had been built around an incomplete model of reality.Meadows’ central insight is that systems behave exactly as they are structured to behave. System behaviour is shaped not only by visible rules but also by mental models and feedback loops. When assumptions change or a leverage point in the structure is altered, the entire system can produce different outcomes.Blueprint thinking asks different questions. What assumptions shaped this system? Who was the system optimised for? What data was never connected? What happens if the sequence changes?In Karlskoga, once the blueprint was redrawn, the outcomes changed.Leadership often focuses on improving performance within existing systems. Blueprint thinking asks whether the system itself needs redesign.A Question For You:Where in your organisation are persistent problems treated as performance failures rather than design failures?A Small Step:Choose one recurring operational issue. Map the sequence that produces it. Then ask whether a different structure or order would change the outcome. References:Meadows DH. (2008). Thinking in systems: A primer. Chelsea Green Publishing.Criado-Perez C. (2019). Invisible Women: Data bias in a world designed for men. Abrams Press.

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The Leadership Toolbelt: The Level

This piece is part of a five-part ClariT series drawing on five texts: Leadership on the Line, Emotional Intelligence 2.0, Dare to Lead, The Leader’s Guide to Radical Management and Thinking in Systems. Each article applies one book’s central distinction to contemporary leadership challenges. The essays stand independently. Taken together, they broaden the leadership toolbelt so that different kinds of problems can be met with different kinds of tools. In The Leader’s Guide to Radical Management, Stephen Denning argues that organisations are governed by narrative, the deeper story about who the organisation believes it is and what it exists to do.Nike’s collaboration with Michael Jordan in the 1980s established more than a product line. It defined identity. Nike positioned itself as the challenger brand, aligned with individual performance over institutional constraint. That posture became embedded in how the company saw itself.Nike did not own factories. Its production model was foundationally outsourced. Instead, it focused on design, innovation and brand while contracting manufacturing across Asia.When poor labour conditions in supplier factories gained public attention in the 1990s, Nike’s initial framing reflected its structure. Responsibility was defined contractually. Compliance rested with suppliers, not with Nike.That framing was consistent with the internal narrative and the operating model. Over time, it became increasingly inconsistent with the company’s public identity.The result was prolonged narrative dissonance.Public criticism intensified. Universities reconsidered licensing agreements. Activists sustained pressure. By 1998, revenues had declined, stock performance had weakened and approximately 1,600 employees were laid off amid broader financial pressures, including the Asian financial crisis.The issue could no longer be treated as business as usual.In May 1998, CEO Phil Knight publicly acknowledged that Nike products had become associated with poor labour conditions and committed to reform. That acknowledgement marked narrative expansion.But narrative expansion requires structural change.Over time, Nike formalised corporate responsibility functions, strengthened supplier codes of conduct, introduced systematic factory auditing, increased transparency and, in 2005, published its factory list. It engaged with NGOs and participated in broader industry standard setting around labour conditions.The manufacturing model remained outsourced, but the scope of responsibility expanded. Governance redesign reduced the narrative dissonance and reputational recovery followed gradually.Denning’s central claim is that organisational behaviour follows the governing story.  Narrative defines scope by setting the boundaries of what the system notices and treats as relevant. It determines which risks are monitored, which behaviours are rewarded and which trade-offs are considered acceptable.When identity evolves but governance does not, dissonance accumulates. Markets eventually notice.Realignment is rarely swift. In Nike’s case, structural realignment unfolded over more than a decade. The brand recovered and strengthened, but only after structural changes aligned governance with identity.A level checks alignment before construction continues. Leadership requires the same discipline.The question is not whether your organisation can articulate values. It is whether your systems, incentives and oversight reflect them.A Question For You:Is there narrative dissonance in your organisation? What signals suggest that identity and governance are misaligned?A Small Step:Identify one value your organisation promotes publicly. Do the budgets, reporting lines and performance metrics reinforce that value? References:Denning, S. (2010). The leader’s guide to radical management: Reinventing the workplace for the 21st century. Jossey-Bass.Ferrell, O. C., Jackson, J., & Sawayda, J. (2014). Nike: Managing ethical missteps—Sweatshops to leadership in employment practices. Center for Ethical Organizational Cultures, Auburn University.Locke, R. M., Qin, F., & Brause, A. (2007). Does monitoring improve labor standards? Lessons from Nike. Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 61(1), 3–31.Nike, Inc. (1998). Annual report.Nike, Inc. (2005). Corporate responsibility report.

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The Leadership Toolbelt: The Tape Measure

This piece is part of a five-part ClariT series drawing on five texts: Leadership on the Line, Emotional Intelligence 2.0, Dare to Lead, The Leader’s Guide to Radical Management and Thinking in Systems. Each article applies one book’s central distinction to contemporary leadership challenges. The essays stand independently. Taken together, they broaden the leadership toolbelt so that different kinds of problems can be met with different kinds of tools. Measure twice. Cut once. A tape measure defines limits before anything is cut. Without measurement, ambition outruns structure.In Dare to Lead, Brené Brown argues that clarity precedes accountability. Leaders often articulate ambition clearly while leaving boundaries implied, defining what must be achieved but not defining the limits within which that achievement would be invalidated.She calls this a “stealth expectation.” Brown links stealth expectations directly to boundary failure. When leaders avoid specifying limits, people are left to interpret expectations themselves. Accountability then becomes inconsistent because the boundaries of success were never clearly measured. Ultimately, stealth expectations create resentment because people are held accountable for standards that were never fully defined.Clarity precedes accountability.Consider Wells Fargo. In the early 2000s, the bank pursued an explicit cross-sell strategy to increase the number of products per customer. The internal slogan was “Eight is Great.” Checking accounts, savings accounts, credit cards and online services were all counted toward the target. Retail banking employees were assigned daily sales quotas. Performance reviews and compensation structures were tied directly to achieving those targets.The metric was visible and measurable.Banking is a highly regulated industry. Regulatory frameworks were assumed to constrain behaviour. Management did not design targets expecting employees to override compliance requirements. The expectation was that professional standards and regulatory obligations would operate as guardrails.But incentives signal priority.As sales goals became more difficult to achieve, the rate of regulatory noncompliance increased.  Funding rates declines, and terminations for sales integrity violations rose.Control functions operated transactionally rather than systemically.  Risk, HR, audit and legal each saw fragments.  No one integrated the full pattern early enough.The result: Cross-sell ratios improved. Targets were met.In 2016, regulators announced $185 million in initial penalties related to unauthorised account openings. Subsequent settlements and remediation costs reached into the billions. In 2018, the Federal Reserve imposed an asset growth cap restricting the bank’s expansion until governance reforms were completed. Senior executives forfeited substantial compensation through clawbacks. Market capitalisation fluctuated significantly as trust eroded.At Wells Fargo, growth was defined precisely, but boundaries were not weighted with equal force.Brown’s argument is about fully defining success. Clear is kind. Clarity means stating not only the goal but also the guardrail. Leaders who avoid that specificity often mistake ambiguity for flexibility. A tape measure asks how long the cut should be and where it must stop.In leadership, this means answering many questions upfront. For example: what success includes, what invalidates success, what the risk appetite is, what behaviour overrides performance and what non-negotiables stand regardless of outcome?When only the headline metric is measured, teams optimise for that metric. Measurement without defined limits creates predictable distortion.Leadership requires measuring ambition and boundary with equal precision.A Question For You:If someone examined your organisation’s incentive structures, what behaviours would they conclude are truly valued?A Small Step:Take one target currently tied to compensation. Write down the conditions that would nullify success even if the numeric goal is achieved. References:Brown B. (2018). Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough conversations. Whole Hearts. Random House.Tayan B. (2019). The Wells Fargo Cross-Selling Scandal. Stanford Graduate School of Business, Corporate Governance Research Initiative.

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The Leadership Toolbelt: The Clamp

This piece is part of a five-part ClariT series drawing on five texts: Leadership on the Line, Emotional Intelligence 2.0, Dare to Lead, The Leader’s Guide to Radical Management and Thinking in Systems. Each article applies one book’s central distinction to contemporary leadership challenges. The essays stand independently. Taken together, they broaden the leadership toolbelt so that different kinds of problems can be met with different kinds of tools. A clamp does not eliminate force. It applies steady, even pressure to hold unstable pieces in place until they bond. Released too early, the joint fails. Applied unevenly, alignment shifts.Leadership under pressure requires the same discipline.In Emotional Intelligence 2.0, Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves describe emotional intelligence through four capabilities: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management. Of these, self-management becomes critical when pressure is highest. It determines whether emotion drives behaviour or whether behaviour is chosen deliberately.Self-regulation begins with recognition. Naming the internal surge. Anger. Threat to credibility. Desire to act quickly.It then requires restraint. Delaying a response. Asking for alternatives. Separating facts from interpretation. Avoiding irreversible commitments while information remains incomplete.These behaviours hold pressure without collapsing into reflex.In October 1962, the United States and the Soviet Union stood at the height of the Cold War. Both possessed nuclear weapons capable of destroying each other many times over. Mutual distrust defined the relationship. The discovery of Soviet nuclear missile installations in Cuba, just ninety miles from Florida, shifted American security overnight.  The missiles were not yet operational, but once active, they would significantly reduce US response time in a nuclear exchange.The stakes were existential.American military advisers recommended immediate air strikes to destroy the missile sites in Cuba. The consequences were clear: delay risked entrenchment, invasion risked retaliation and escalation risked nuclear war.President John F. Kennedy did not order immediate action.He convened a small executive group, the ExComm. He allowed disagreement. He delayed public positioning while diplomatic channels were explored. He reframed a naval blockade as a quarantine to avoid triggering automatic escalation under international law.Across the Atlantic, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev faced his own pressures. Withdrawal could signal weakness while escalation could invite annihilation. He too was managing military options, national pride and political credibility.For nearly two weeks, both sides mobilised forces while negotiating formally and informally. The technical issue was missile deployment, but the emotional issue was the fear of appearing weak. Escalation was prevented through the willingness to hold tension without acting on impulse.A clamp keeps pieces from separating while alignment sets. In the Cuban Missile Crisis, self-regulation prevented reflex.After thirteen days, the Soviet Union agreed to withdraw its missiles from Cuba. The United States privately agreed to remove its own missiles from Turkey.Most citizens at the time did not know how close escalation had come. Declassified records later revealed how narrow the margin was. Nuclear destruction was not theoretical in 1962. The memory of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was recent and real.Neither Kennedy nor Khrushchev emerged from the crisis untouched by criticism. Political narratives in both countries reshaped how the episode was remembered.Leadership reputations are rarely settled in the moment.Restraint often appears uncertain. Leaders can be misinterpreted in the moment. Emotional intelligence in leadership is a long game. Its impact becomes visible over time and is measured by what went well and what did not happen.Sometimes the most consequential leadership involves inner engineering while remaining outwardly invisible. It holds until stability forms.A Question For You:When urgency is highest, do you move towards escalation, or do you regulate and create space?A Small Step:In your next high-stakes decision, create deliberate space before acting. Ask what becomes visible if escalation is not the default option? References:Bradberry T, Greaves J. (2005). Emotional Intelligence 2.0. Talent Smart.Allison GT, Zelikow PD. (1999). Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis (2nd ed.). Longman.Frankel M. (2002, October). Learning from the Missile Crisis. Smithsonian Magazine. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/learning-from-the-missile-crisis-68901679/

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